


Weißkehlammer

by dolichonyx (mniotilta)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 22:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20104699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mniotilta/pseuds/dolichonyx
Summary: And therein lied, upon the snow, an angel layered with mistakes, inseparable and integral.





	Weißkehlammer

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote 99% of this about six months ago for the Clayleb server before I absolutely dropped off the face of the planet entirely for Months and I'm only getting around to posting this now. 
> 
> You can take this as romantic or platonic, it's written to be more platonic than anything else, but death of the author and all of that, and I'm fine with Clayleb either way.
> 
> Editing this at nearly 3am is probably a mistake so apologies for any grammatical issues.

The trees sagged with the weight of the snowfall, burdened, but it was a beautiful sight in the dim light, in the pale hour before the sun peaked from behind the mountains as the sky fades from darkness into washed out purple, when the world is still for a moment. It was soft, like the blanket of undisturbed whiteness as far as the eye can see, perfect, unsullied, whole. It was jagged, like the trees, coated in ice, a phantom forest filled with crystal chandeliers, with icicles dripping like melted candlewax.  
  
Caleb shivered when he stepped outside, exhaling a long breath that escaped between his clenched, chattering teeth, a steaming ghost caught in the light as the first beams of morning pierced down into the valley. He rubbed his fingers together before shoving them deep into his pockets, considering taking a step out from underneath the protection of the overhanging roof of the building they spent the night in, but the idea of crushing the snow beneath his foot and ruining the pristineness of the morning stopped him. He sighed again, adjusting to the cold as his shivering slowly subsided.  
  
He was not the only one awake—there were small birds, groups of wintering sparrows, hopping atop the snow, barely leaving footprints. They began to scratch, to dig, to try to reach the frozen ground below and uncover food underneath the fresh sheets of snow. A few of them found refuge in the branches of a low-growing bush, basking in the sun to warm themselves in much the same way Caleb himself was doing. One opened its beak and began to sing, belting out a high note, then one lower, off key, and then a vibrating repetitive tone that rang across the otherwise silent landscape. Another bird replied, singing the same broken song, a song that Caleb had not heard in a long time—or at least, he hadn’t paid attention to it in the years he survived on the outskirts, cold and alone. It was a common sound every winter during his childhood, and he remembered waking up on frosty winter mornings and hearing sparrows like these filling the void with their sound as he laid in bed. It was beautiful, it was haunting, and it was also uncomfortable as the song dredged up childhood memories from the deep pockets of his memory, of a kind of peace now shattered into pieces. It stung like frost, clinging and cracking around the outline of his heart, the kind of stabbing cold that clings to your legs like a sea of pins, cold, metallic, and sharp. But as the new day dawned and the birds sang out as if their lives depended on it, Caleb almost forgot, just for a brief moment, smiling slightly and closing his eyes in the basking of a sweet and forgotten memory.  
  
“We had these birds back home,” a familiar voice from behind Caleb reminisced, softly, with the same sort of wistful tone that Caleb himself had felt moments ago. It was a voice that made Caleb jolt in surprise, tearing him from daydream, and he turned, startled, at Caduceus standing in the doorway behind him.  
  
“My apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Caduceus bowed, not out of respect or apology, but so he didn’t hit his head on the door frame on his way out into the cold.  
  
“_Weißkehlammer_.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“_Weißkehlammer_,” Caleb repeated. “It’s what we call those birds in Zemnian.”  
  
“Ohhh,” Caduceus nodded, slowly, sagely, with understanding that his confusion was a matter of language difference and not a failure of interpretation. “That’s such an official sounding name. In my family, we just referred to them as those little brownish sparrows that only come by in the winter.”  
  
“That’s an awfully long name for them.”  
  
“Well,” and Caduceus stroked his chin, “in all honesty, I’ve probably chatted _with_ those birds more than I have talked _about_ them to other people. And when you chat with them—the birds, I mean—you don’t have to specify that they are little, or that they are brownish, or that they are sparrows, or that they only come by in the winter. They are very aware of who and what they are already. So you can just say, “hello, sparrows,”” and Caduceus waved his hand in a broad stroke to demonstrate, “and they know that you’re addressing them.”  
  
"Right..."  
  
Caleb watched without a word as Caduceus took the first steps into the winter landscape, leaving large footprints behind him as he strode with purpose to a cluster of brambles near the edge of the woods. After some rummaging around in a satchel he produced a handful of small seeds which he threw across the ground, then crouched low, bringing himself to eye-level with the brush, and began to speak slowly, softly, words Caleb couldn’t hear. Soon the sparrows came out from within the messy tangles of the barren bush, paying Caduceus no mind, and began to eat the food provided to them. Caduceus unfurled a hand, speaking again, and one landed without hesitation on his extended index finger. It sang, a sweet, mournful song, and it was rewarded with a seed before it flew away.  
  
It was with great difficulty that Caleb followed in Caduceus footsteps—the firbolg was so much taller, his strides so much longer, and Caleb had to nearly jump from imprint to imprint in order to make it over to him without placing his own footprints in the snow. As he approached he saw that even more sparrows had gathered around Caduceus, sitting atop his head, the gentle slopes of his shoulders, clinging to the back of his spine, and it conjured images in Caleb’s mind of books he had read on the folklore in faraway lands, where there are peoples who believe that the land that we live upon is nothing but the backs of massive stony giants, dormant but shifting in the endless depths of the sea.  
  
As Caleb hopped into the last footstep—almost losing his footing but quickly righting himself with a few frantic waves of his arms—Caduceus turned, smiling wide, and as he stood the birds scattered from him, flying off into the tops of empty nearby trees.  
  
“That’s quite a following you’ve got,” Caleb gestured upwards.  
  
“Everyone appreciates free food,” he laughed, tossing another handful of seeds which was immediately followed by the descent of dozens from the treetops. “Have you ever fed birds, Mr. Caleb?”  
  
“Ehh,” a long pause as he thought, scrunching his brow. “No. Not like that, at least.”  
  
“Would you like to? I can show you.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Come here, then. Give me your hand. That’s it. Here’s some seed. Palm out, yes, like that. Alright, now hold still, and let’s ask them if they’ll come say hello to you.”  
  
Caduceus began to explain to the open air that Caleb had food, that he was safe, that he was a friend, and if the sparrows were so inclined to land on Caleb’s hand it would be most appreciated. A few of them perked their heads up to listen but resumed picking up seed off of the snow and a handful of slow seconds passed before one landed on Caleb’s outstretched hand and took a seed, breaking the outer shell apart and eating the soft meat inside before fluttering away. Then another came, and another, until there were many, until the last seed was taken, until there were none.  
  
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”  
  
It was a question that Caleb only nodded to in response—and as Caduceus took a deep breath of frigid winter air and exhaled words of gratitude towards the birds, the woods, and his goddess for making this cold morning a little warmer, Caleb stared at his open hand and the discarded shells upon it and felt a smile creep up the sides of his face. It was a smile that he immediately hid, pulling his scarf up over his rosy, cold cheeks, but he could not shake the warm feeling that shivered in his chest.  
  
“_Weißkehlammer_,” Caduceus tried, pointing at one of the sparrows, the syllables awkward as they slid off of his tongue slowly, dripping, like thick molasses. It was wrong, the pronunciation, an ill-placed movement of the tongue and strain of vocal cords, but it felt wrong as the word rang in Caleb’s ears in the same way that eating one too many cookies is wrong—it is still sweet, and even if it doesn’t hit the spot just right, and it’s hard to truly be irritated by it.  
  
“Close,” and Caleb repeated himself, sounding out each syllable, still muffled by his scarf.  
  
As Caduceus tried again, listening closely, asking for another repetition before sighing out the word in an elongated breath which bloomed and rose like smoke in the cold—this time, a little better, accented but a decent attempt, Caleb said. As Caduceus continued to practice to himself, repeating the word until he sounded like a broken, stuttering record, there was a feeling, a thought, that sat with Caleb that he couldn’t shake.  
  
He could conjure all sorts of magic to damage, to disguise, to defend, but he did not feel he was capable of this kind of magic—that is, magic without magic, the ability to bring about enchantment and wonder with nothing but a handful of seed and the faint brushing of feathers against the skin.

* * *

“I’ve missed being able to walk out in the snow so freely like this,” Caduceus sighed, head turned towards the sky while Caleb followed alongside him, eyes pointed towards the ground, kicking up snow with his heavy boots with every step.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“The grove is always so much warmer than the rest of the Savalierwood—even when it snowed it would melt quickly. When there were many of us sometimes we’d take walks through the woods in groups but after everyone left it really wasn’t safe for me to leave and wander on my own anymore."  
  
“Do you like the snow? The winter?”  
  
“Mmm, in my opinion every season is nice. The change of scenery is nice,” he grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Although, my fingers are starting to get a little cold.”  
  
Caleb’s eyes lit up and he stopped mid-step, frozen in motion. Caduceus continued to walk for several paces, muttering under his breath to himself in thought, before realizing that he had lost his buddy. He turned, slowly, to watch the wizard’s eyes glittering, wide, wordless, right at him.  
  
“Caleb?”  
  
“We have supplies to bake bread, correct?" He gestured. "And you, my friend, know how to make it?”  
  
“Well. Yeah?”  
  
“Later, I will have to show you my trick that you can do with a loaf of freshly baked bread. Beauregard and Jester did not appreciate this trick when I showed them, but perhaps you will.”  
  
“Well, if it’s something you’ve come up with I’m sure it’s great.”  
  
“It is a very good trick.”  
  
“I believe it.”  
  
“We should head back to the house. The others might be waking up soon.”  
  
“I think that’s a smart idea,” he nodded, and they both turned around, following their footsteps back. There was a long pause before Caduceus spoke again.  
  
“What about you?”  
  
“... What?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“What do you mean, “what about you?””  
  
“Oh! Oh. Sorry, I was thinking about a minute behind in the conversation. Yeah.”  
  
“That’s okay.”  
  
“Do you like snow?”  
  
“Ah, I don’t know. I don’t like being cold.”  
  
“To be fair, I don’t think anyone enjoys being cold. At least, not for long periods of time. But it’s nice, sometimes, to be a little cold,” and he swept down, picking up a handful of snow off the ground and rubbing it between his fingers, crunching it together into a solid mass, and gripping it tightly until it began to melt within his grasp. He bent down again—this time, using both hands, sculpting a snowball before breaking it into two equal halves.  
  
“I haven’t made a snowball in a really long time,” Caduceus smiled, offering the other half to Caleb, who took it with some hesitation, unsure of why he was being offered it or what to do with it, especially when Caduceus didn’t throw his, but purposefully dropped it, watching it fall, and chuckled, bemused, at the impact it left in the snow.

* * *

“I can’t remember the last time I made a snow angel, either,” Caduceus sighed, lying backwards upon formally untouched snow, folding his arms across his stomach now that he had finished sweeping his arms and legs to make wings. Caleb stood at his feet, staring, still holding onto the snowball that Caduceus had handed him, now mostly melted away in his dripping fist, fingers stinging and red with cold.  
  
“Would you like to join me?”  
  
“Ah,” Caleb sighed. “No. I’m fine watching you have your fun. But I have a suggestion.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“You should probably have a halo if you’re an angel.”  
  
“Yeah. I mean, probably. I’ve never met an angel—that I know of, at least— so I don’t know if they all have halos. Do they? You seem like the kind of person that would know. But I mean. Yeah. I think it’d be a good touch.”  
  
“Here,” and Caleb trudged through the snow—here, where it had fallen thick, nearly reaching to the tops of his boots—in a wide arc as not to disturb the virgin snow around the lying angel, kneeling down and reaching out his arm as wide as he could to draw a halo in the snow with his finger above Caduceus’ head as best he could before going back the way he came. “Not all celestial beings have halos, but,” and Caleb shrugged, “for this, I don’t think it matters very much. I think it looks fine.”  
  
“Could you help me up?”  
  
“_Ja._ Hold on.”  
  
Caleb took a few steps forward, reaching down to meet Caduceus’ hands and placing them into his own, interlocking their palms tightly and using what meager strength he had to pull him up. The wetness of his palm that had held the snowball prior made his fingers slippery, making it difficult to get a solid grip, and although Caduceus was light for his race he was still heavier than Caleb expected. It was a combination of those things that caused Caleb to slip and fall forward, smacking squarely against Caduceus’ chest, knocking the air out of both of their lungs and the mildly painful, accidental meeting of forehead smacking into chin.  
  
A mutual groan of pain and surprise, silence, and then Caduceus laughing quietly, vibrations that Caleb felt reverberate through his body as he rubbed his forehead with furrowed brows. As the laughter died down Caleb felt a hand on his back, pushing him forward, as fingers brushed the hair out of his face, gently tucking it away behind his ears.  
  
“Hey,” Caduceus said, bringing Caleb to eye level. “Sorry about that. Are you okay?”  
  
“I think so,” Caleb mumbled, still rubbing his temple.  
  
“I think ruining the snow angel is unavoidable now,” Caduceus sighed, his eyes drifting off into the emptiness of the pale blue sky. He began to sit up, placing one hand on the ground as support and using the other to wrap around Caleb so he wouldn’t slip awkwardly during the shifting of their bodies. Caleb slid himself off of Caduceus lap, placing his hands against the firbolg’s chest and pushing gently to keep his balance as he stood, standing straight and tall before offering an empty hand again, and this time Caduceus took it without sending Caleb toppling back down.  
  
“So, it’s a little lopsided,” Caleb scratched his bearded chin with his thumb in thought at the imprint in the snow. “A little messy. But I think it still looks okay.”  
  
“Yeah,” an airy, breathy sigh. “Yeah, I think it does, too.”  
  
And therein lied, upon the snow, an angel layered with mistakes, inseparable and integral.

* * *

And they created, with Caleb’s exact measurements and Caduceus’ accurate knowing, kneading individual loaves, and Caleb dropped fragments of knowledge—he couldn't help himself, from mentioning the Zemnian way of doing things, the way his mother used to bake bread—and he got quiet in between these lapses but Caduceus filled them with his own additions, his own traditions that were passed down from generation to generation through his bloodline, until carved into muscle memory, molded into the very being of the Clays.  
  
They were both northerners, on similar latitudes, a stone’s throw apart on the map, and while their cultures, families, and races were very different there were commonality in aspects of their inherited ways. Perhaps in the centuries long before their births there was a greater degree of shared contact across the world, or perhaps there are only so many ways to make a loaf of bread on this continent.  
  
The loaves were a little lopsided but it is hard to argue with warm, fresh bread.  
  
“—And so, you stick your hands inside the loaf, and it keeps you warm and you also have something to eat later,” as Caleb demonstrated, darting his eyes back and forth between his temporary mittens and Caduceus’ face, waiting for a reaction.  
  
A laugh, a smile, and a look of both amusement and gentle understanding.  
  
“That’s great,” Caduceus said, mimicking the process with his own loaf, grinning. “I don’t think I would’ve ever thought of doing something like that.”  
  
It’s a smile that is, and will always be, infectious.

**Author's Note:**

> \-- Weißkehlammer is German for "white-throated sparrow," a species of New World sparrow that was prolifically singing in my area while I was writing this fic and I heard them on most winter mornings, which sparked the initial scenes. They also happen to have one of my all time favorite birdsongs (and are one of my all time favorite birds, in part because of their unusual reproductive behavior that essentially makes it so that the population behaves as if it has four sexes, not two, which is cool, but I digress), so I highly suggest listening to it. It's a simple song but in my opinion there are few things more beautifully haunting than getting up at dawn and feeling the frost crunching beneath your feet and in that crystalline cold hearing them sing. 10/10 would highly recommend if you happen to find yourself in the wintering range of this species. 
> 
> \- This was prompted by someone in the clayleb server but I have 10000% forgotten who it was and I am too anxious to go back in the log from six months ago and find them, and someone (idk if same person) threw in a bread mittens prompt (or maybe it was the other way around, memory isn't the best) but anyway if you're reading this thank you for the prompt!!!


End file.
